Think you know how electricity travels through a circuit?

[birdguy 3,956]

As I understand it its and exchange of electrons from atom to atom in the conducive material primatily in a single direction in DC and in both directions in AC.

In DC as a battery sucks an electron from an atom in a conductor that electron is replaced by an electron in an adjacent atom on down the line until the last atom sucks an electron from the battery.  Kinda like a circle jerk.

Noel

[charliearon 3,041]

58 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Actually its both. The initial "streamers" go from the cloud down. When contact is made, the main flash that you see goes up. 

 

Its like Noel doing a little pee pee on a railway track. His tinkle goes down then he gets a shock traveling up his little pee pee. 😲😀

Just don't pee pee on an electric fence! 😳

 

[W2DR 1,861]

18 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

So how close would you have to be, without actually touching the wire, in order to receive a noticeable shock? Would it be in the nanometer range?

It depends on the voltage applied to the the wire, the condition of the surrounding air, and the conductivity of the nearby object. The breakdown voltage for air is 33Kv/Cm. In other words, a gap of 1 Cm can produce a shock if the applied voltage to the wire is 33Kv. Using that information you can get the answer for any distance once the applied voltage is known (for a perfectly conducting object which, for all practical purposes, a live human body is).

Edited November 24, 2021 by W2DR

[birdguy 3,956]

59 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Its like Noel doing a little pee pee on a railway track. His tinkle goes down then he gets a shock traveling up his little pee pee. 

Thanks for the recognition Martin.

Noel

[W2DR 1,861]

Noel, the real question is (drum roll).....how did he know that?  🙂

[dmwalker 612]

14 minutes ago, W2DR said:

a gap of 1 Cm can produce a shock if the applied voltage to the wire is 33Kv.

So, is there a gradient? What would happen with a gap of 1.1 cm?

[W2DR 1,861]

Nothing. Only an increase in the applied voltage or an increase in the conductivity of the surrounding air would cause any effect.

[n4gix 4,955]

RF energy travels on the surface of the copper, or copper clad aluminum/steel transmission wire. For frequencies above 100MHz it is wasteful of conductive metals to use solid conductors, so multiconductor straps or tubing can be used to utilize the larger surface areas.

Ref: Skin Effect in AC Conduction (gsu.edu)

[birdguy 3,956]

4 hours ago, W2DR said:

Noel, the real question is (drum roll).....how did he know that?

Well, he knows I'm from New Mexico.  Need I say more?

Noel

[sightseer 895]

I have never understood WHY electrons flowing through a conductor would set up a magnetic field that exists relatively VERY far from those electrons.  Do not electrons move all the time in their orbits?  Why aren't all atoms emitting magnetic fields at all times?  Theres something more going on here.  Unfortunately I could no longer understand it Im sure.

[lzamm 146]

11 hours ago, dmwalker said:

So how close would you have to be, without actually touching the wire, in order to receive a noticeable shock? Would it be in the nanometer range?

It's very difficult to receive a shock from the electric field in free space because it is an insulator, and once the charges move they rapidly build up an opposing field which cancels the effect.  That's why to get any effects you need conductors (wires, or an ionised channel such as an arc or lightning bolt) to supply large quantities of charges without cancelling the field - remember the electric field in an ideal conductor is zero.  As boys we would go down to a nearby AM transmitter (Voice of America I think it was, transmitting propaganda - sorry, the sound of liberty - to the Balkans and East Germany) at night and hold up a neon tube, which would glow eerily.  So several hundred volts must have been present across its metre or so of length, but there was not enough current to actually light it up.  Certainly we felt nothing, though the story could have been different if we went inside the fence.

[lzamm 146]

7 hours ago, sightseer said:

have never understood WHY electrons flowing through a conductor would set up a magnetic field that exists relatively VERY far from those electrons.  Do not electrons move all the time in their orbits?  Why aren't all atoms emitting magnetic fields at all times?  Theres something more going on here.

Actually, fields are just a bit of mathematical mumbo-jumbo to replace Newton's just-as-magical "action at a distance".  It is an indisputable fact that distant objects do affect each other, either through what we call gravitation or what we call electromagnetism (or the two other nuclear forces), and the concept that these objects create a field extending throughout space and the field then affects the other objects allows a relatively easy calculation of these effects.  In particular it includes the possibility that the action takes time to be felt, as the propagation is in terms of waves that travel at a certain speed.  However the paradigm in physics today is that the fields are more "real" than the objects themselves, in fact in theoretical physics particles are described as quantum-mechanical fields which means that fields are all that there is.  But the difference between an effective description and reality, or even if reality itself exists, is best left to philosophers.  It's far easier to just shut up and calculate!

And yes, all moving charges including those in atoms, create magnetic fields at all times.  In particular electrons have spin, which is more effective at creating magnetic fields than their orbital motion (which in turn is nothing like a the common picture everyone has of electrons orbiting a nucleus like a planet orbiting a sun 🙂).  However in most cases these fields cancel each other out.  For instance, two electrons are involved in a chemical bond and in the preferred lowest-energy state they will have opposite spins, with zero net magnetism.  So most materials are non-magnetic, or to be more accurate very weakly magnetic.  However in some materials there is another (quantum-mechanical) interaction that prefers spins to be  aligned with one another - these are the ferromagnets, or permanent magnets, which have very tangible magnetic fields.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by lzamm
typo

[martin-w 3,259]

12 hours ago, charliearon said:

Just don't pee pee on an electric fence! 😳

 

I believe an energised railway track would be lethal. An electric fence would be just painful for some but a real thrill for Noel.

[martin-w 3,259]

12 hours ago, W2DR said:

Noel, the real question is (drum roll).....how did he know that?  🙂

 

Okay... he is from Roswell. So being aware of the association with crashed alien space vehicles, I decided to engage in a clandestine operation.

I spied on him for approximately one month and during that time I witnessed regular self charging sessions were he would let go a full bladder onto any exposed live conductor he could find. Sometimes railway tracks, sometimes electric fences and sometimes directly into electrical sockets. Most disturbingly of all, I witnessed the creature pertaining to be "Noel" book a flight and travel to the UK for some of our 240 volt ring main action.

I conclude from my investigations that "Noel" is one of the aliens from the Roswell crash that escaped the military. Probably some kind of cyborg and that he requires the regular charging of his quantum power packs now he no longer has access to his ships zero point module.

[W2DR 1,861]

One of the best posts I've ever read Martin. I was in Roswell a few years ago. Had I known this then I'd have tried to get some live pictures. Just imagine what the tabloids could do with some photos. He'd be famous worldwide.....